Rise and Shine Muffins

February 8, 2012 By Leanne Vogel September 13, 2017

While visiting London this past November, a couple of colleagues and I quickly developed a morning ritual of meeting at the Starbucks on Berkeley Street before heading in to the office. Since Starbucks doesn’t offer any gluten-free baked goods; and even if they did, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to pass up a homemade treat for processed gunk, I ended up packing a coconut muffin top in my purse so I could join in the ritual. I sat with the group; Venti Calm Tea in hand, as they snacked on their scones, yogurt, and lattes. It made my morning.

During one of our visits Lea; my boss, decided to order a rise and shine muffin – a breakfast muffin packed with apple, raisins, carrot, pineapple, cranberries, sunflower seeds and pecan pieces. “A source of fibre” the little poster in the window claimed. It looked good, making my sad little muffin top quite insignificant.

When I got back to my hotel room over 16 hours later, I still had that golden muffin on my mind – a surefire sign that I had to recreate it when I got back to Canada. Then, I completely forgot about the recipe for a solid 3 months.

When planning the recreation a couple of weeks ago, I did a bit of research to figure out what I was up against. A good place to start was the nutrition facts from Starbucks:

448 calories – I little heavy for a breakfast muffin. To cut this down, I opted for less oil than usual, reducing the 18g of fat from the original as well.
6g protein – a perfect amount that I worked hard at maintaining in my recreated version.
31g sugar – I’d be a wreck if I had this much sugar in the morning. ZING! Instead of relying on refined sugar, I opted for sweetening with just a touch of maple syrup and dried fruit.
2.8g fiber – to keep this, I added flax seed instead of the oat bran and other glutenous ingredients used by Starbucks.

I wrote down the ingredients that I thought would yield a similar healthier, gluten-free alternative and got to work! The result? The best muffin I’ve ever made. Seriously. I know I say that a lot, but I really mean it EVERY time. … and if you don’t believe me, my neighbor; Shawna, said it was too.

Rise and Shine Muffins

Author: Leanne Vogel

Recipe type: Gluten free, Dairy free, Refined sugar free, Yeast free, Corn free, Grain free

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 17 mins

Total time: 32 mins

Serves: 6

Don’t let the bird food topping fool you. These muffins are so ridiculously tasty and don’t taste at all like they’re ‘good for you’. At just under 170 calories per muffin, you can feel good about indulging in one of these on your way out the door, packing in your child’s lunches, or just making a batch for yourself on a sunny Wednesday morning.

Ingredients

3 eggs at room temperature
2 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
2 tablespoon coconut milk
3 tablespoon maple syrup
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ cup coconut flour, sifted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup shredded carrots, drained
½ banana, chopped into rough chunks
2 tablespoon unsweetened raisins or dried currants
2 medjool dates, pitted and finely chopped

Topping

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds, chopped
½ teaspoon whole flax seed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400F and line 6 muffin cups with paper liners. Set aside
Combine all dry ingredients in a small bowl.
Combine all wet ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
Add dry to wet and stir until incorporated.
Add in shredded carrots, banana, raisins, and dates. Stir until just mixed.
Drop mixture into prepared muffin liners and top with the mixture of seeds.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Mine took exactly 17 minutes.

View Nutritional Information (once on page scroll down)